We shall strive more particularly here below in this document to describe the problems and issues in the field of electronic payment casings that have been faced by the inventors of the present patent application. The present disclosure is of course not limited to this particular field of application but holds interest for any communications terminal casing that has to cope with proximate or similar problems and issues.
Present-day casings of electronic payment terminals generally have two parts, known as a lower cover and an upper cover, used to shelter all the operating components and elements of the terminal (electronic components, paper roll for printer, etc.).
The lower cover comprises a housing that can be closed by means of a removable protection hatch. Such a housing is used to house elements of the terminals such as for example a battery, a smartcard, connections for a connection cables of the terminal or a transactional storage module. This module, especially, is dedicated to the recording of transactions made by the terminal so as to include therein cash register functions, transaction logging functions, etc.
Conventionally, the protection hatch is fixed to the lower cover by means of a plurality of attachment screws or force-fitting mechanisms.
One of the main concerns of manufacturers is that of designing and manufacturing electronic payment terminals that are compact, have high mechanical resistance and are very simple to use.
Now, the drawbacks related to the presence of attachment screws include the lack of space available to position these screws and the fact that they increase the thickness of the terminal. Indeed, present-day casings have to adapt to the reduced terminal size demanded by users which imposes especially dimensional and ergonomic constraints.
Another drawback related to the use of attachment screws is that they make the operations for mounting and dismounting the hatch relatively lengthy and painstaking, because of the need to use a suitable tool (a screwdriver for example).
As for force-fitting mechanisms, they have the drawback of being fragile in their use and of making the operations for opening and closing the hatch difficult and painstaking.
The manufacturers have also devised a system of assembly based on a sliding of the hatch on the lower cover by means of guide rails. These guide rails enable a movement of rectilinear translation of the hatch relative to the lower cover, in a first direction to carry out the mounting (or closing) of the hatch or, in a second direction, to carry out the dismounting (or opening) of the hatch.
This type of system can only be compatible with hatches having a rectilinear surface profile. However, most of the presently designed casings have a curvilinear surface profile, especially to meet the ergonomic constraints for installing a hatch with a curvilinear surface profile.